Although Sir Mervyn King has little more than six months left of his second term as Governor of the Bank of England, his intellectual evolution continues. His latest speech, given on October 23 in Cardiff to the South Wales Chamber of Commerce, contained an intriguing sentence: "The role of the Bank of England is to create the right amount of money, neither too much, nor too little, to support sustainable growth at the target rate of inflation."

He arrived at this conclusion after some remarks about "insufficient" and "excessive" money creation. The trouble with insufficient money creation is that it might result in "a contraction in the money supply and a depression", as had been seen in the US in the 1930s. On the other hand, "excessive money creation leads to accelerating inflation and ultimately the collapse of the currency". These remarks are banal in themselves as similar sentiments have been uttered by dozens of economists at one time or another. However, coming from King after a 20-year stint at Britain's central bank they are significant, perhaps even of great significance.

First, King is clearly saying here that changes in the quantity of money "lead to" changes in macroeconomic outcomes. The assertion that money "causes" deflation or inflation is more or less explicit. This is in line with standard monetary theory, but sharply at variance with the widely-held but pervasive misconception among Britain's academic economists that expenditure is determined by "animal spirits" and fiscal policy, and that money and banking can be ignored.

Secondly, the management of the quantity of money is said to be "the role of the Bank of England". This agrees with numerous statements made by the British government and the Bank of England at the dawn of Thatcherism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In those statements, as in King's latest speech, the task of keeping money on track was seen as a responsibility of the state. The state had that responsibility, even though the quantity of money is dominated nowadays by bank deposits, which are liabilities of privately owned organisations. (Well, privately owned unless they have been nationalised or semi-nationalised.)

All the above is encapsulated in King running the country using a model with no financial sector!

Democorruptcy

December 15th, 20129:12 AM

King loves to try focus minds on 2007 and later years. On how brilliant he pretends he's been at fixing the problems the global economy has caused. What about who caused the problems in the UK?
Feb 2003 when King was Deputy Governor before taking over in June of that year
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"The Bank of England has surprised City analysts by cutting interest rates by one quarter of a percentage point.
After 14 months on hold, rates have been cut to 3.75%, taking borrowing costs to their lowest level since 1955.
This is one of the biggest gambles any central banks has done - cutting rates when house price inflation is close to 30% and inflation is already above target," said John Butler, UK economist at HSBC.
"It is true to say [the Bank is] playing with fire."
Ross Walker, UK economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, said: "I can see nothing in the data that suggests the UK consumer needs further interest rate easing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2732645.stm
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UKIP-local

December 14th, 201211:12 PM

I was expecting a much wider condemnation of King but the points made seem to me to be spot-on.
The wider analysis would point to his failure to make the case against the disfunctional regulatory arrangements introduced by Brown, any criticism of the ineffectual regulatory performance by the FSA or any words of caution on the rapid increase in government spending by Brown.
Indeed, it appears the BoE never carried out any gaming itself on how the banking system would operate in the benign inflationary conditions, which arose from the low priced manufactures out of China, and accordingly they were asleep on the job just like the FSA. This information came from a BoE agent during questions at a presentation to businessmen.

Baron

December 4th, 20121:12 PM

Spot on, Mr.Congdom, he indeed has been the most disastrous Governor, even with leaving out his 'contribution' to the financial insanity that nearly buried us all.

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